MMORPGs economy, the future of human evolution and Matrix as a reality

Given I haven't blogged for a long time I have a lot of pent up expressing to do. Today I thought I'd develop several thoughts that have been hanging around in my head from the late 80's concerning virtual reality, virtual capitalism and prognostications on the evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens. How's that for a twisted, convoluted and unrealistic goal :)?

OK, to be short and sweet about this, these are the facts I start with: One, people are using real dollars to purchase items for use in MMORGS. Two, population growth in still increasing, not slowing. Three, placing people in pods and feeding them nutrients via IV solutions while individuals were connected to a MMORG/virtual reality could (logically) vastly increase the density of humans the earth could support. For instance, The wife and I find our little 1200 square foot apartment with standard 8 foot ceilings a bit cramped given neither of us like to discard things. If we converted this space into pods where people lie in womb like environments their entire lives this volume could easily house 100 people. A 50 fold increase in population density with no greater environmental impact (leaving out for the moment little things like waste disposal, support equipment, power generation.......).

So, MSNBC has a story on their site concerning the future of human evolution. While interesting and entertaining, I felt they left out a very important option/possibility - The Matrix Solution. More and more people spend their daily existence online. Checking E-mail, surfing, reading blogs, chatting etc. with people who share common interests from around the globe. Some chat sites even offer avatars and virtual environments to interact in. People are also already paying real money for 0's and 1's that aid the development of their characters in online games. Now, considering the continuing power of Moore's law, development of computing power necessary to create photo/3D realistic human forms in the not too distant future is not an inconceivable concept. Further, human machine interfaces continue to add new features and complexity. Hell I've heard of people controlling the dildo action of a woman connected to the net and vise versa! At some point the distinction between virtual and real becomes meaningless. Stack 'em in pods, feed 'em slurry from microorganism produced goo and we've got ourselves a newly evolved human with little to no need for the real world and can explore an infinite number of virtual realities as if they were real and actually decrease the impact humans have on the real environment andstill have our stupid unabated population explosion.

So there you go. I've related online gaming, evolution and a Hollywood movie together to solve humankind's greatest threat to itself, our damned desire to have sex at the hint of a drop of a pin. Problem solved!

Enjoy the ramifications and philosophical quandaries.